Online Dating Blog

Tips for Your 2013 Dating Resolution

Many people make a resolution to change their dating life at the new year. Some of us resolve to finally get into a great relationship while others just want to start dating in any form.

Whatever your situation, I wanted to offer a few tips for success for your resolution whether you’re looking for a committed relationship or just more first dates.

This advice comes down to a few areas: first, seeing people reject the idea of using online dating to find a great relationship and second, seeing people enter into the online dating experience with unreasonable expectations.

1. Don’t Ignore Online Dating

I make this plea every year but don’t ignore online dating! That’s what I devote this website to, it’s how I found my wife and it’s an area where I see successes happening all the time.

As the years have gone by, I’ve have to make this argument less. Even five years ago it was a lot harder to convince people to give online dating a try. Today, I see a lot more people willing to give it a try which is great. But if you’re on the fence, please consider it!

One great reason to try online dating with your resolution is because many other people are also making dating resolutions and from January until the end of February, online dating services will be booming. This means there should be more people to meet and more opportunities. Online dating can work at any time of the year, but this time of the year sees a lot more people using it.

Finally, if you don’t want to try online dating but you are still resolving to find a relationship/more dates, I want to ask: how will you be finding your dates? If you don’t have a good answer for that, online dating might be worth reconsidering!

2. A Specific Goal is Better than a Generic Goal

This goes for any resolution but I think many times we don’t think it applies to our dating lives. We will say to ourselves: my resolution is to find a great relationship. Then a few weeks in, we’re frustrated and give up.

I think a better goal is to say: I’m going to date online for three (or six) months and aim to go on X number of dates. This is a much better goal as you can actually measure how much success you are having while giving yourself a reasonable amount of time to have that success.

3. Be Prepared for Some Frustration

In the tip above, I recommend three or six months as a goal. Why would I recommend that? Isn’t online dating easy? If everyone on the dating service is single, I should only need a month to find that special someone, right?

Unfortunately, just because everyone on a dating service is looking for a relationship doesn’t mean that finding one will be easy. I try to make this clear whenever someone is trying online dating for the first time. I have seen a lot of people give up way too early because they judge themselves as a failure if they can’t find a relationship dating online in 30 days. Trust me, you’re not a failure and it’s harder than it looks!

So give yourself some time and don’t be too hard on yourself if your first dates are coming slower than you’d like. The frustration you experience is what most of us deal with, especially early on in online dating. The more you use it, though, the easier it gets and I promise that it can be fun (or it was for me).

Overall, if you’re making a resolution to find that great relationship, just be sure to treat it like any other resolution. Make sure you have the opportunities to find success and don’t assume it’s going to be easy. With the right approach, I think it’s a great resolution to have!

Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.

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